Marianna Crane

WHAT JOURNALING WILL DO

It’s a coincidence that I wrote the last entry in my journal on February 28 at the same time I finished my book. Well, my book is not finished-finished but it’s getting its final editing—by a professional content editor—as I compose this post.

I have been using a 5-subject wide-rule notebook every morning to put down whatever wanders into my head ever since I decided two years ago I would FINISH THIS BOOK! Daily notations first thing in the morning, something akin to morning pages suggested by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way, have kept me primed to write.

And it’s a coincidence that when I started this particular journal on April 4, 2013 I had just received feedback from four beta-readers. In between the first and last journal entry, I have incorporated the changes they suggested and made edits based on feedback from two more beta readers and, later yet, made changes suggested by another two readers. Whee!

Besides acting on feedback from beta-readers, I spent time in May at a writers-in-residence at Weymouth Center and attended a writers’ retreat at Wild Acres in September and, of course, kept my pen moving on the pages of my journal each morning.

Get yourself a notebook and begin to journal daily. Who knows what you will accomplish!